Neighbor From Hell
by Blood of an Authoress
Summary: John hadn't really thought much of the man since that incident, but sometimes he did. McShep
1. Chapter 1

Warning: AU, currently pre-slah.

Disclaimer: I do not own SGA.

_**Neighbor From Hell**_

_Part 1_

-x-

John threw an irritated glance at the wall which separated his and his neighbor's apartments. Ever since the new tenant had taken up residence next door John had had to deal with a lot of rustle and bustle noises, not to mention the mumbling and gleeful cheers at all hours of the day. It wasn't the noise that bothered him, per se, but the blatant disregard of respect that his new neighbor had. The first time John had seen him, it was when he was barking at the movers to "be careful with that box! The value of the items it contains is much higher than what your life is worth!" John had walked over to the man and introduced himself.

"That's nice," the man snapped at him, "but some of us are busy trying _not_ to waste my precious time!"

John had reeled back a little, but shrugged and lazed back over to his own apartment, looking over his shoulder at the obviously cocky man while closing his door. He hadn't really thought much of the man since that incident, but sometimes he did, and then he wondered just what it was that the man did for a living. He'd leave at odd and random hours, and sometimes didn't return for more than 17 hours. When John would see him walking down the hall, the man would look like as though he hadn't slept in days or taken care of his hygiene. It was a little bit strange to see the man stumbling down a barely lit hall with ruffled hair, wrinkled clothes, and an unshaved beard.

John had once or twice mentioned his 'Neighbor from Hell' to a fellow barrista that he worked with at Starbucks. She suggested bringing him some coffee and getting to know him. After all, how bad could he really be? He was obviously very devoted to his work, "And that," she explained, "is not a bad thing at all. 'Work hard, play harder,' right?" She'd then winked at him.

"Woah, now. I'm not interested in him that way. I don't even know what side of the fence he grazes on."

She gave him a look, shoved two cups of coffee in his hands, and told him he had the rest of the day off, and that is how John Sheppard found himself holding two cups of coffee outside his new neighbor's apartment door while he waited for the man to answer the doorbell. When the door finally opened a haggard-looking man stood in the doorway blinking owlishly at him.

"Uh, hi. I'm your neighbor in Room 403. I'm John-"

"Sheppard, yes, I remember you. What do you want?" The man interrupted him.

"I brought coffee," John said by way of explanation.

"Oh. I see. Well, come in then," he replied, closing the door behind John. "I'm Rodney McKay. _Doctor_," he carefully emphasized the word doctor, "Rodney McKay."

"Okay. Welcome then, Dr. Rodney McKay, to the homey abode of our many residents." John said, reaching out with a cup of coffee toward the man.

"Mm, yes, charmed, I'm sure," Rodney answered after snagging the offered cup and gulping down several mouthfuls.

"So.." John said lazily, wanting Rodney to choose something to talk about.

"So, now that I'm have my coffee, get out. I have work to do."

"Hey, that's not how it works!" John protested. "You have to have idle chit-chat with me first. I brought you coffee," he pouted.

Rodney glanced at him, annoyed. "Fine. The weather is sunny. Out."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" John ignored Rodney and settled into a plush, black couch. "It's normally nice this time of year, but not quite this nice. It'd be a great day to be in the air," he said wistfully.

"You're a pilot?" McKay asked, slightly interested, but still annoyed.

"I was."

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

Rodney sighed exasperatedly. "What happened that you said 'I was' instead of 'I am'?"

"Oh, just some incident. It was all a misunderstanding. No big deal."

"Well, it had to have been for them to kick you out of whatever program you were in," Rodney snapped at him.

John frowned at him. "You know what? I think I left my oven on in my apartment. I'll see you later."

John pushed himself off of the couch and made his way to the door. "It was nice talking to you, McKay," he said blandly, shutting the door behind himself.

Rodney frowned. He had a feeling he'd actually upset the other man, and for some reason, that sort of bothered him.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own SGA. 

_**Neighbor From Hell**_

_Part 2_

-x-

Rodney stood impatiently in the line at a Starbucks that was only about five blocks from his apartment. All he wanted was to get in there, quick buy a black coffee, nice and simple, but of course even -that- had to go wrong. Life working as a scientist (one of the world's best, if Rodney wasn't wrong or just bragging) was interesting and exciting, but also annoying to the point that Rodney would just -love- to strangle his assistant Radek Zelenka on some days. Today happened to be one of those. The hylictrolgic generator that they were working on had almost been complete, but then that moron Kavanagh had to go and disobey Rodney's order of "no touching it for even one micro-second, do you hear me?", resulting in a major set-back. Needless to say, Rodney had exploded at the man, threatening to cause him pain worse than death. Radek was also very annoyed at Kavanagh, but he could control himself enough to stop himself from hurting the man, and he didn't trust Rodney to not kill the man, so he forced Rodney out of the building, insisting he could handle it. 

"I am competent worker, no? I fix it in no time, no trouble. You go home, relax, no kill anyone, alright?" Zelenka had said right before closing the door on Rodney.

Rodney had huffed angrily, but decided to take advantage of the rest of the day. He'd figured that stopping for a nice cup of coffee would help to improve his mood, but that was before he'd had to stand forfifteen minutes in line without even ordering yet. Finally the person in front of him stepped aside to wait for their own order, and Rodney stepped forward to order his. He opened his mouth.. and shut it. In front of him stood his ('very sexy,' his brain thought) neighbor, the ex-pilot.

"Uh, hi," he said awkwardly, remembering what had happened the day before at his apartment.

"Hiya neighbor," John replied cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

Rodney looked at him warily, looking for signs that he was being mocked. As far as he could tell, he wasn't. "Um, yes. I'd like a grande-sized coffee, black."

"Ok," John muttered while ringing the small order up. "Would you like anything else?"

"No. Well, actually, yes. Would you, um, mind coming to my place later?" Rodney sighed. "I think we got started off on a bad foot yesterday," he offered as an apology.

"Nah, it's cool," John assured him. "But I wouldn't mind talking some more. I get off at seven. See you then?"

"Yeah. Sure," Rodney said.

"Okay, great. That'll be $5.13," John replied, happily taking the man's money and going to get his order. "Here, one black coffee."

"Well, I guess I'll see you later," Rodney mumbled and left the store.

When Rodney got back to his apartment he realized it was already pastfive o'clock. That gave him less than two hours to eat, clean, and shower. He quickly shoved a pizza in the oven and began working on clearing his table. There really hadn't been much reason to clean his place before. He wasn't even there too much, and he was the only one living there with no visitors. At least, before his next door neighbor had come over and made him feel slightly guilty.

Rodney frowned. He had no idea why the other man had made him feel guilty. Afte rall, Rodney never felt guilty after yelling at his incompetent workers, but maybe that was because they were his collegues, not his neighbor. Yes, Rodney decided, that must be why. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he pulled the pizza out of the oven and ate it as quickly as possible. Looking at the rest of his apartment, and with only an hour before John would be arriving, Rodney deemed it a lost cause and went to shower. He'd always found hot water to be enjoyable and extremely relaxing; the water didn't let him down.

Stepping out of the shower and wrapping a towel around his waist, Rodney thought he heard a noise. He made his way to the frontroom, where the door was making noise. No, Rodney thought, it's not seven already. Is it? Glancing at his watch Rodney cursed. It was. He'd have to quick invite the man in and get changed. He opened the door to greet his neighbor who, once he'd caught sight of Rodney with only a towel on, began smirking.

"What a lovely way to greet a guy," John drawled.

Rodney flushed. "Just come in and I'll go get changed."

"Why bother?"

"What?" Rodney squawked.

"Eh, I'm just teasing you. Go get changed. I'll see what's on TV," John waved him off.

Rodney quickly retreated to his room with wide eyes. "What the hell was that?" he muttered, "Is he insane?" But he couldn't deny; his heart had begun beating faster.


	3. Chapter 3

John grabbed the remote off of the coffee table in front of him. He smiled fondly. 'Figures he'd have a real coffee table.' Turning the TV on, he flipped through the channels, only stopping when he found a football game. Football was the best off all the sports out there to him. How could anybody love anything else?

John stretched out his leg, resting his foot on the edge of the table and leaning back into the couch.

"Get your filthy feet off of my table!" a slightly anxious sounding voice snapped at him.

John looked up. It was Rodney. "Oh. Yeah, sorry about that. Bad habit."

"Yes, well, I'd appreciate it if you could get your abnormally dense brain to understand the concept of respecting other people's property."

"Hey," he protested. "My brain is not abnormally dense! I'm abnormally smarter!"

"'Abnormally smarter.' Oh, yes, you've really convinced me of that," Rodney snarked at him.

John rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. And I am smart. I was accepted into Mensa. It's not like I joined, though."

"Wait," Rodney commanded. "Mensa accepted you and you said, 'No, thanks,'? What kind of an imbecile are you?" Rodney stared at him, appalled. John raised an eyebrow. "Assuming you're telling the truth," Rodney added hastily.

"I am telling the truth!" John insisted.

"Prove it," Rodney said, sliding a paper and pen over to John after scribbling on it for a moment. John looked down at the paper. On it was an equation. It was a hard one, but not hard enough.

"The prominent is 4x(9 to the 7th)3/37 times 27, and the rest has not solution."

"Ha! Wrong!" Rodney crowed happily, grabbing the paper. "The right answer is that the prominent is 4x(9 to the 7th)3/37 times 27, and the rest has no solution," he paused. "Wait a minute. You got that right. You got that right?" He asked questioningly.

"Yes, Rodney," John said, speaking slowly, as if he were talking to a child.

"Oh. Okay."

John stared at him. Rodney blinked.

"What?"

"Shouldn't you, you know, apologize to me or something?" John gestured randomly with his hands.

"For what?" Rodney's brow furrowed.

John's eye twitched. "How about the fact that you called me stupid?"

"I didn't call you stupid. I said that you had an abnormally dense brain," Rodney corrected, and then added as an after-thought. "And then I said you lied, but I acknowledged you got the problem right." He frowned. "That still doesn't mean that you're smart, though. You work at Starbucks."

John raised his eyebrows. "As opposed to what you do..?"

Rodney faltered for a moment before coughing. "That's, uh, classified."

"Okay, then, _where_ do you work?"

Rodney cleared his throat and mumbled an answer.

"What?" John asked, confused.

"Atlantis Corporations! I work at Atlantis Corporations, alright? Are you happy now?" Rodney glared at him.

"And that's a bad thing again, how?" John asked.

Rodney stared at him. "Are you joking me? We're run by an incompetent confidence-booster who doesn't know what she's doing. She just became the owner of the corporation eight months ago, and doesn't even have a degree in business. She used to give speeches! She also can't understand the necessity of science! She's cut our budget in half despite it being our most important department of Atlantis Corporation! Did you hear me? Half!" He cried desperately.

"Oh," John said understandingly, "You just don't like her."

"Well," Rodney paused, "It's not that I don't like her. She just doesn't understand the art of science!"

"The art of science?" John asked sceptically.

"Yes," Rodney scowled at him.

"Okay," he drawled.

"It's an art!"

"Mm-hmm."

"It is!"

"I know, Rodney," John said.

Rodney frowned. "Well, good."

"So, uh.. what do you want to do now?"

"I was thinking maybe we could go check out this science museum, actually. It's rumored to have some great pieces by.." Rodney rambled on, John nodding every now and then to appease him.

'He really loves science,' he realized.

"So?" Rodney interrupted his thoughts?"

"Yeah, sure," John agreed. 'Whatever you want.'


End file.
